190 - JORGE CAMACHO LAZO (Havana, 1934 – Paris, 2011).

JORGE CAMACHO LAZO (Havana, 1934 – Paris, 2011). “Ashes 7,” 1974. Lithograph, print no. 15/75. Signed and numbered in pencil. Measurements: 75 x 55 cm; 77 x 57 cm (frame). Provenance: Estate of Ramon Martí Alsina and Ricard Martí Aguiló. Artistic and heritage collection originating in the legacy of Catalan painters Ramon Martí Alsina (1826–1894), a seminal figure of 19th-century Catalan Realism, and his son Ricard Martí Aguiló (1857–1935). Passed down and enriched across successive generations, the collection brings together works from the original holdings of both artists alongside acquisitions made by their descendants. Dedicated to preserving and recovering the family legacy, the descendants actively reacquired works by the painters as they entered the market, progressively expanding the collection to encompass paintings, sculptures, archaeological artifacts, and other items of artistic and historical significance. One of the leading figures of Latin American Surrealism, who had been living in Doñana since the early 1970s, Jorge Camacho was influenced by the many avant-garde movements of his youth, particularly the work of Tamayo, Miró, Bacon, Tanguy, and, especially, Wifredo Lam. On a trip to Paris in 1959, he was invited by André Breton to participate in the activities of the Surrealist group, and upon his return to Cuba, he exhibited his new works at the Salón de Mayo (1967). He developed a style of painting based on the masterful treatment of line and color, drawing on elements deeply rooted in his unconscious, drawn from a blend of American traditions and cultures whose rituals and distinctive features are evident in the mysterious metamorphosis of his figures and in the use of unusual skeletal configurations and structures with a marked totemic character. His work is currently represented at MoMA in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, and the Reina Sofía in Madrid, among many others.